Socio-historical research and land tenure in South Africa

Socio-historical research and land tenure in South Africa

A case study of land tenure rights on the Northern Cape farm of Melkkraal

LAP Lambert Academic Publishing ( 2010-05-30 )

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The aim of the research was to clarify the land tenure relations of an impoverished farming community on a farm called Melkkraal. The farm is co-owned but it is also home to twenty six households of which three are co-owners. The remaining households have occupied the land through a haphazard process of acquiring oral permission from some of the co-owners and non-owning residents. This has led to a tenure conundrum because the way in which the farm is registered means that neither the households nor the co-owners can access the necessary government assistance or assert their authority to make development decisions. As a result, the Surplus Peoples Project undertook to investigate the nature and content of the rights of the households in relation to the rights of the co-owners. The findings revealed that very little difference exists between the non-owning residents and the co- owners in terms of how land is used and transacted. This was attributed to the evolution of a social land ethic such that one can speak of the Melkkraal farm as a commom property regime.This means that there is just cause to upgrade informal rights in land into real rights in property.

Book Details:

ISBN-13:

978-3-8383-0506-6

ISBN-10:

383830506X

EAN:

9783838305066

Book language:

English

By (author) :

Cameron Lee Jacobs

Number of pages:

168

Published on:

2010-05-30

Category:

Civil rights, Civil proceeding